


Gotham Serenade

by cycnus39



Category: Batman (Comics), Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:17:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cycnus39/pseuds/cycnus39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Joker has a gift for Batman...and Superman is the wrapping paper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotham Serenade

“I need you to search all the piping systems across the city as well as every 55-gallon drum on the main islands,” he said as soon as a sharp breeze whipping at his cape heralded Clark’s arrival in the cave. “There will be nine or ten victims at each location,” he continued, minimising the city map he had been studying and maximising the paused video on the screen as Clark came to stand beside the computer chair.

“Nine or ten? How did you--” Clark broke off as he hit play and the Joker’s grinning face filled the screen.

“Hellooooooo? Is this thing on? Harleeeeey!”

“Yes, Mister J?” Harleen Quinzel answered off camera.

“I thought this was live streaming?”

“Um...it is.”

“So why is there nothing but a placeholder thingy on the web page where my face should be?”

“Because our feed’s being sort of kind of hijacked?”

“Hijacked?” the Joker repeated then bellowed at Quinzel, “HIJACKED? You mean Bat-jacked, you imbecile!” the Joker went on murderously, looking for all the world as if he was about to pull the real revolver out of his inside jacket pocket and shoot the hapless woman where she stood. But then the Joker suddenly calmed and quirked an eyebrow at the camera. “Trying to peek at your presents early, eh, Batsy? Well, let’s not disappoint.”

The Joker stepped back and, through the heavily falling snow, the camera framed a makeshift set of gallows with twelve men and eleven women sharing ropes upon it.

“He’s pure evil,” Clark whispered as the Joker shouted at his clown-masked henchmen to let it rip and the plank supporting the women’s feet fell away.

“This happened eighteen minutes ago at the construction site of the Truelove Shopping Mall,” he told Clark grimly as the twelve men began frantically jumping in the air so the hanging women on the other end of their ropes could reach the ground and delay asphyxiation. “Oracle intercepted the feed and the police arrived in time to save the victims but the Joker--”

“Escaped as usual,” Clark growled.

“And twelve lords a-leaping and eleven ladies dancing means the Joker has targeted another fifty-five victims,” he concluded, stopping the video and cutting the Joker off mid cackle.

“So I’m looking for ten pipers piping and nine drummers drumming?”

“They are members of the police band who were kidnapped earlier this evening,” he returned low, bringing up the photo gallery of the men and women in question. “I was working on their case when Oracle sent me the video.” Shutting down all the running programs, he stood up from the chair and faced Clark. “As soon as you’ve rescued the officers, help secure all the single nursing mothers and ballet dancers you can find. Gordon has men stationed at all the hospitals and ballet schools but he needs all the help he can get.”

Having given his instructions, he turned to walk down the computer bay stairs, but Clark caught his arm on the first step.

“What about the Joker?”

“Leave him to me.” He shrugged off Clark’s hand and walked down the stairs, but Clark gave chase.

“Joker is the lynchpin, Bruce. Our priority should be capturing him as soon as possible. Once I’ve rescued the police officers, I’ll--”

Turning on Clark, he growled low, “You’ll do as you’re told or you’ll leave.”

Clark’s surprised expression twisted into a snarl. “I can search the city in--”

“This isn’t up for debate.” He turned his back on Clark, started walking across the cave to the car. “Either follow my instructions or go back to Metropolis.”

As he climbed into the driver’s seat, he knew Clark had flown off to rescue the officers, knew Clark could never leave anyone in need. However, as he started the car then drove it out of the cave into the snow, through the trees onto the back road, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d made a terrible mistake. While he knew Clark would save the officers and that Gordon should be able to keep the Joker’s other targets safe with Clark’s help, he still had the nagging suspicion that he was doing exactly what Joker wanted.

The bright lights of the main road made him blink as he turned the car down onto Memorial Bridge but they didn’t shed any light on his jumbled thoughts. Even though he knew he’d done the right thing by calling Clark, knew tens of people would be saved by that action alone, something told him he’d made the wrong move, told him the Joker was manipulating him because the thing Joker really wanted was Clark and Clark alone.

Or maybe it was just his own anxieties at play.

Growling at his feeble struggle for clarity, he exited the bridge at Amusement Mile, headed west on Rosemount towards the Botanical Gardens and focused his straying mind on the facts of the case.

The Joker’s plan would be at least twofold because the Joker’s plans were always at least twofold. So far, only the first stage of the plan had been revealed and, unlike the last time he had faced the Joker, there were no signs that Clark was being targeted. In fact, the likeliest scenario was that the grand scale of Joker’s mayhem was merely to keep the Gotham PD occupied while the next stage of his plan was being executed.

Plain, simple and insanely monstrous.

To figure out what Joker really had in mind, he’d have to interrogate him in person. That meant finding and capturing the maniac before Clark got there first, an impossible feat with such an unpredictable quarry. Harley Quinn, on the other hand, was an entirely different prospect. After being abused by the Joker over the video feed debacle, she would have ran away to nurse her hopefully mostly figurative wounds and she only ever ran to one person, or, in this case, one place.

Poison Ivy’s vegetation clad apartment building was a block down from the Botanical Gardens and, despite vociferous protests, had been bought and annexed by the Botanical Society after Ivy’s arrest some years before. Even though he had eradicated every cell of harmful flora himself before the Society had taken possession of the building, he still wasn’t comfortable with naïve botanists ‘studying’ Ivy’s work and eyed the flourishing plants that covered every inch of the brickwork with displeasure as he parked the car across the street. It appeared his new batch of herbicide would be put to the test much sooner than he thought.

Tabling the weed killing for later in the week, he climbed out the car into the lightly falling snow and crossed the street looking for signs of Quinn’s entry into the building. He didn’t need to look far. Even though the earlier snow flurry had covered most of Quinn’s footprints, the outlines of her distinctive tread were still visible under the fresh snow and the dislodged leaves and broken stems on the lower right apartment windowsill told him all he needed to know. But Quinn was insane, not dumb. She knew he would come for her, which is why he had announced his arrival by parking the car across the street. However, that didn’t mean he was going to allow her to blindside him with a lead-weighted rubber chicken.

Instead of taking his usual roof route, he walked up the front steps of the apartment building and forced open the front door. The security alarm immediately started whining but he paid it no heed. The security firm the Botanical Society employed were so criminally slow to respond that he was beginning to suspect that lack of speed wasn’t the only thing criminal about them.

By the time he’d climbed the stairs to the third floor, the alarm had quietened down to an intermittent wail and he timed his footsteps to coincide with each pulse of noise as he approached Ivy’s old apartment door.

“Step back and put the chicken down, Quinn!” he abruptly barked upon reaching the door, heard her startle against the wood on the other side.

“Huh! What makes you think it’s a rubber chicken?” she yelped back, hastily dropping something heavy and probably chicken shaped then picking up something with a cord that trailed on the floor.

“Put the lamp down and step away!”

“Hey! Quit peeking!”

“Now, Quinn!”

“Yeah, that’s right, take all the fun out of life,” she pouted, dropping the lamp and moving away to plonk herself down on the musty old couch then cough out a lungful of dust.

Not taking any chances, he kicked open the door, wasn’t surprised when Quinn came flipping violently across the floor towards him. It seemed she would never learn. Avoiding a nasty kick that punched a whole straight through the wall, he grabbed her other leg and knocked her over onto her rear.

“Ouchie!” Quinn rubbed her tailbone and glared at him. “Didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to hit a girl in clown makeup?”

Judging by the swelling on the left side of Quinn’s face and the way she was favouring the right side of her ribcage, the Joker had done more than just push her over. However, even though a fractured cheekbone and a few bruised ribs were mere lovetaps by the Joker’s standards, he couldn’t help but offer her a sympathetic hand up.

“Oh.” She blinked in flattered surprise but still couldn’t help reaching behind her back to where the rubber chicken lay on the floor.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” She shrugged it off then took his hand, let him pull her to her feet. “You really are something, B-man,” she then purred, raising her right hand to trace around the black bat on his chest with her fingers. “Did you know that the real reason why old Jeremiah doesn’t like you visiting the nuthouse is because nine out of ten of us poor little loonies wet our--”

“I’d rather know where the Joker is,” he growled, knocking her hand away.

“Yeah, figured you would,” she sighed, folding her arms across her chest and walking away to stand by the window. “So give me one good reason why I should tell you.”

“Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t.”

Watching the snowflakes dance on the breeze, she didn’t respond, so he walked up to stand behind her.

“You’re here because you know you shouldn’t have left Arkham when Ivy needed you. You’re here because you want to do the right thing.”

“Ha! Turn in Mister J?”

“Go back to Arkham to look after your friend.”

Quinn bit her lip in consideration before replying softly, “Red is taking that mutation thingy pretty hard, huh?”

“She needs you.”

“But she’s gonna be so mad at me.” Quinn winced. “The things she yelled when me and Mister J slid out the window on that plastic Begonia...”

“If you tell her you only went with Joker to get him put in solitary for a few months, she’ll forgive you.”

Quinn gave him a dubious look. “You think?”

“The Joker did convince the warden to replace all the plants in Arkham with fakes just to facilitate his escape plan.”

“Yeah, who knew the guards would fall for the old plastic plant ladder trick, huh?”

“So?”

“Eeeee!” Quinn squeed then tried to jump into his arms, ended up just hanging from his neck when he refused to catch her, but that didn’t dampen her grin. “You’re the best B-man! You know I never did believe those stories about you eating babies and Brussels sprouts.”

He let her kiss him on the cheek, let her drop to her feet then skip two steps away before demanding, “Where?”

“The Keystone warehouse on the north side of Miller Harbour,” she answered airily on her way to the door.

“Leave the chicken,” he warned before she was tempted to pick it up.

“Spoilsport,” she tossed back over her shoulder as she flounced out the apartment.

Staying by the window, he watched her run out onto the street and flag down the security car responding to the alarm as if it was a taxicab. The two guards who stumbled out of the car to apprehend her were still fumbling with their nightsticks and radios after she’d handcuffed herself to the backseat and started singing ‘All I want for Christmas is my big red mallet’.

Deciding the security firm’s employees were probably just criminally incompetent rather than anything else, he headed back down the stairs, watched the security car drive off with a happily out of tune Harley Quinn in the backseat as he crossed the street to the car.

“Blackbird to Blue, I have the position. Hold where you are,” he told Clark over the comm link as he climbed into the driver’s seat then started the engine.

No response.

Scowling, he swerved the car out of its parking space and sped south through the snow towards Schwartz Bypass. “Repeat, Blackbird to Blue, I have the position. Hold where you are.”

“I hear you, B,” Clark finally responded. “I’m at the position. I can see...oh no.”

“Do not engage! Repeat, do not engage. My ETA is--”

“Sorry, but they can’t wait.”

“Don’t--” he began but the line was dead.

Putting his foot to the floor, he raced through the snow-covered streets to the Upper East Side, fought for control out of too many spins before finally heading down Murphy Avenue towards Miller Harbour.

He was swerving under the train tracks towards the warehouses that lined the northern side of the harbour when something caught his eye, a dark movement between the snow flurries ahead of him. A split second after he’d slammed on the breaks, he realised three of Joker’s goons were running towards him, chasing two little girls in pink leotards with tutus through the snow.

The girls screamed and slipped as the car screeched to a halt bare inches in front of them, but then he was climbing out the car and it was the Joker’s goons who were screaming and falling in the snow. Knowing the charge from the electric batarangs would keep the goons out for a good twenty minutes, he turned his attention to the frightened girls.

“It’s okay,” he said gently, crouching down in front of the girls, who seemed to be no more than six or seven years old. “I’m--”

He’d never been tackle hugged by two little girls before and he wasn’t quite sure if he liked the experience. He certainly didn’t like it when he picked the girls up out of the snow and the one on his right side started babbling in his ear as he carried them around to the passenger side of the car.

“I’m Lily Louise Ann and bad men took us from the bus and took us to the mean clown and the mean clown was mean and said mean things and the bad men laughed and we don’t like the bad men or the mean clown but we like Superman because Superman saved us and told Chrissy she looked pretty even though the bad men ripped her tutu, see?”

“Superman,” Chrissy whispered.

“Did the bad men hurt you?” he asked.

“No, not one bit and not one bit at all because I would have screamed and screamed and screamed until their heads exploded and they ran away,” Lily Louise Ann answered.

“Superman,” Chrissy whispered again.

“Who is still with the mean clown?” he continued, opening the passenger door and extracting the little girls from him so he could strap them into the passenger seat. “Any girls or bad men?”

“No, just Superman and nobody else and nobody else at all.”

“Superman.”

“Good. Now, when I shut the door, the car will drive you to the police station near the park with the carousel and--”

“Is it remote controlled?” Lily Louise Ann asked. “My brother has a remote control car and Mommy says he’s not allowed to drive it outside nuh-uh not at all Mommy said.”

“No, the car will drive itself to the police station where nice police officers will give you hot chocolate until your parents come get you,” he finished, closing the car door before Lily Louise Ann could draw breath to talk again, but he still heard Chrissy whisper, “Thank you, Mister Car.”

“Pattern C-A-one variation P-nine-two,” he told the car while walking up to the unconscious goons, heard the car reverse away then drive off through the snow as he crouched down for a closer look at the downed men. “Oracle, let police headquarters know the car will be by the south exit in approximately four minutes with two seven-year-old girls who haven’t been reported missing as of yet.”

“Great news, B...relayed. I guess you know Harley turned up at University Square station. Any news on Joker?”

The goons were the Florence brothers and Mickey Pitts, three very low rung criminals for the Joker to hire. Wondering what the Joker’s usual goons were up to, he dragged Pitts over to the Florence brothers and cuffed them together as protection against frostbite as well as easy escape. He then left them in a pile on the side of the road and set off through the thickening snow towards the warehouse.

“I have three Joker goons down on South Liberty by Black Lane. Give me three minutes then alert Gordon to the Joker’s position at the Keystone warehouse.”

“Three minutes,” Barbara confirmed and he shut down his comm link, crouched down low and entered the warehouse through the side door.

As soon as he stepped foot inside the dark chill of the building, he heard the Joker talking and silently crept around the pile of shipping crates in front of him to see where the Joker stood with Clark in the centre of the warehouse.

No.

Clark wasn’t standing.

As his eyes adjusted to the dull pools of red, green and yellow illumination cast by the roof crane’s running lights, he saw that Clark’s feet weren’t touching the ground, but Clark wasn’t floating because--

Kryptonite.

There was a ten-inch shard of kryptonite buried in each of Clark’s thighs and forearms, pinning Clark to a stack of wooden pallets that had been bizarrely decorated with paring knives. The red of Clark’s blood and the green of the kryptonite were sickeningly emphasised by the red and green lights hitting the blades of the knives and he couldn’t look away, couldn’t--

“Caught like a super rat in a trap,” the Joker crowed, pirouetting across the floor and blocking his view of Clark. “Seriously, were you even trying? What? What did you say?” the Joker stopped dancing and leaned in to listen to Clark cough then struggle for breath. “You’re all choked up? Really?” The Joker put his hands over his heart as if overcome with emotion and stepped back from Clark, letting him see the shard of kryptonite the Joker had driven up under Clark’s jaw to pin his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “Awww, you know if I knew you were going to be this appreciative of little old me, I wouldn’t have doused the kryptonite with that sticky stuff, but, well, c'est la vie. No use crying over canned Superham.”

The Joker reached up to pet Clark’s face and he’d heard enough, had enough, threw a batarang at the crane arm so it shattered a string of lights with machine gun bangs before ricocheting off to smash one of the roofline windows.

As the Joker jumped away from the noise and glass, jumped away from Clark to look up at the window, he climbed up onto the crates then ran up to Joker on his blindside. But Joker was fast. Before he could leap down and close the distance between them, the Joker turned on him with a spray of acid, forcing him to stop dead and shield his body with his cape. Then it was a race to detach his cape from his cowl, to throw it smoking and hissing at the Joker while he leapt to the floor and rolled after it.

He wasn’t fast enough.

By the time he’d regained his feet, Joker was cocking a gun at his head.

But he didn’t have time for that.

As the Joker drew breath to go off on some insane rant, he slapped the gun out of Joker’s hand then punched him in the face as hard as he could. He felt the Joker’s nose and left cheekbone give way beneath his knuckles, felt the warm spatter of the Joker’s blood on his chin, but he didn’t have time for that either.

Letting the Joker crumple to the floor then scramble off out of the harbour exit door, he rushed over to Clark and pulled out the shards of kryptonite that held him to the pallets.

“Medical Code Blue emergency,” he said into his comm link, immediately activating the emergency line to the Watchtower. “Repeat, Medical Code Blue,” he continued while easing Clark gently to the floor. He then drew breath to give the exact coordinates of the warehouse while digging a small pair of pliers out of his belt but Clark was pulling at him, coughing up blood, and he couldn’t think, could barely breathe.

“I’m getting it out, Clark, hold on,” he said, steadying Clark’s head against his body then bringing the pliers up under Clark’s chin and catching hold of the protruding shard. As he tightened the pliers’ grip, he could feel the kryptonite was deeply imbedded in Clark’s head, hoped it hadn’t reached Clark’s brain as he pulled it out smooth and fast. But not smooth or fast enough.

As Clark writhed in agony against him, he enveloped Clark in a tight embrace, kissed his forehead, kissed the soft curls on the top of his head. Then the high-pitched hum of the Watchtower teleporter sounded and Clark was gone.

“Batman to Infirmary,” he growled, getting to his feet to chase after the Joker. “Be advised that the K was doused with an unknown substance. I am currently in pursuit of the suspect. Stand by.”

“Acknowledged,” Pieter replied.

Kicking open the harbour exit door, he was met by a blast of icy wind but the Joker was long gone. Judging by the tracks and blood splatters in the snow, the Joker had left the warehouse at a dead run, heading east towards Miller Bridge and a likely pre-planned escape route.

He didn’t have a second to lose.

Sprinting through the snow, he ran the quarter mile to the first pier of the railroad bridge in record time, only to look up and see the Joker climb onto the train track seventy feet above him. His lungs were burning from the cold and his muscles were trembling from exhaustion, but he didn’t have time to catch his breath, immediately shot a grapple line up onto the bridge and flew up to flip and land on the tracks just a few feet behind the Joker.

“Batsy! Darling!” The Joker turned on him with a bloodstained grin and he knocked the purple whoopee cushion out of the Joker’s hand then grabbed him by his shirtfront.

“What did you put on the kryptonite?”

“Violet breath? I thought you were more a minty kind of vainglorious vigilante.”

“Tell me,” he snarled in Joker’s face -- and the Joker kissed him firmly on the mouth.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was, couldn’t stop himself slamming Joker down hard onto the steel rails. He didn’t feel any satisfaction when he heard the Joker lose his breath to the sudden agony, saw the Joker’s face contort with pain, but he didn’t feel any guilt either.

“Whoops! My bones break so easily around you,” the Joker wheezed and laughed while struggling to breathe past the blood gurgling up his throat. “Either Scarface is right and I need to drink my milk or you’re not getting enough fibre in your diet.”

“I know Superman was supposed to be the partridge in the pear tree in your sick little game, but I also know that was all just a distraction for the police,” he growled as the snow began falling lightly around them. “Poisoning Superman wasn’t your big plan, so tell me what you put on the kryptonite, tell me what your goons are really up to, and I won’t break every bone in your body.”

“Have you tried prunes?” the Joker giggled while wriggling away trying to pull something out of his inside jacket pocket.

In one fluid movement, he smashed his left boot heel down on Joker’s right wrist, breaking bones even as he jammed the Joker’s hand and wrist between two switch rails, and reached inside the Joker’s pocket to pull out the straight razor the Joker was going for, tossed it over the bridge into the river.

“Now how am I going to cut that smile on your face?” the Joker hissed at him then gasped. “You really are the most difficult person to buy for.”

“The next train is overdue. Talk.”

“Oh don’t you get it? It was all for you! Although now I’m seriously beginning to wonder why I bother. Even Superham appreciated me more. Mark my words, Batflunk, the genius of true love is a terrible thing to waste.”

And there it was. The answer to what the Joker had really been planning had been staring him in the face all along.

“Finally he gets it!” The Joker rolled his eyes. “You know I was really beginning to wonder if they’d swapped you out for some demented clone...not that I’d mind putting a nice, cheery smile on his face too but--”

“Enough,” he growled as the track began rumbling beneath them with the approach of the overdue C-Line. “Tell me what you put on the kryptonite before I let the train have you.”

“Ooh, I do like it when you play rough,” the Joker wheezed then spat out a mouthful of blood and grinned at him lewdly. “Trains and tunnels are so you.”

“I won’t ask again!” he snarled, leaning down and grabbing Joker by his shirtfront again as the train approached the bridge.

“Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of Pammy’s DNA on a mat,” the Joker finally answered and everything happened at once.

As he reached down to free the Joker’s arm from the switch rails, the train’s headlights sliced through the darkness and hit them like a spotlight.

As the bridge shook beneath them and the deafening sound of the train filled the air, he felt the cold, sharp bite of a thin blade penetrating his side.

Once.

Twice.

As the coldness in his side suddenly burned hot and the train roared in his ears, he dived away from the blade, away from the Joker, collapsed against the far rail of the opposite track as the train blasted past with all the thunderous fury of hell.

Then the train had gone.

And so had the Joker.

Struggling to his feet holding his side, he limped over to examine the rails.

There was no blood, no bone, no tissue.

Stepping over the remains of the Joker’s jacket still lodged between the switch rails, he looked over the side of the bridge at the black water below.

Nothing.

“Batman to Infirmary,” he snarled into his comm link while fishing his largest acoustic coagulation dressing out of its belt compartment. “The substance on the kryptonite was a chlorophyll based binding agent. Exposure to sunlight will only worsen his condition. You need to treat him with doses of KP-four-twelve and IK-nine-zero-zero in the lab vault,” he continued, pulling up the top half of his suit and ripping the dressing out of its protective wrapping. “You’ll find my full notes on the chemistry under Isley log three-eight-nine-one-four-two. Batman out,” he finished, cutting the connection and pressing the dressing hard against his side.

At first there was just the heat and pain of the knife wounds screaming against the added pressure of his hand. Then the tiny ultrasound units in the dressing pinpointed his damaged cells and the searing agony of the pulses they emitted to heat the tissue and clot his wounds drove him gasping to his knees.

Thirty seconds.

The acoustic dressing should finish its work in thirty seconds.

But he didn’t have thirty seconds.

“Oracle, the Joker escaped,” he hissed down his comm link. “He went off the north end of Miller Bridge. East side. I didn’t-- I didn’t see him fall.”

“Got it. I’m putting out an all points now,” Barbara returned, then continued softly, “You sound pretty rough there, B. Do you need assistance?”

“Negative,” he growled back, forcing himself to get to his feet and press the car recall button in his right glove. “The Joker has targeted eight victims. Four-- No, three at Arkham and three at Blackgate as well as Nigma and Harvey Dent.”

There was a slight pause before Barbara answered, “Okay, I have two teams listening in. What details do you have?”

“The three targets at Arkham are Orca, Ventriloquist and Echo. Their cells are all located on the third floor of the East Wing, which makes one of the Joker’s gas bombs in the ventilation shaft of either the East Wing boiler room or laundry sub-basement the most likely form of attack. The third Ubu, Electrocutioner and Lock-Up are the targets at Blackgate. They’re all in solitary confinement so you’re looking at poisoned food trays and explosives in the wiring under the cells. Don’t set off any alarms.”

“Okay, my team will take the gas and the loonies,” Dinah said over the link. “Barda, you and your DH can take care of the poison and the bombs.”

“Your generosity is appreciated,” Barda replied dryly. “What about the last two targets?”

“I’ll be at Dent’s within the minute,” he answered as the car roared onto the bridge then stopped dead just a foot in front of him. “I can--”

“I’m two minutes from Nigma’s place,” Huntress broke in.

“You’re supposed to be in bed!” both Barbara and Dinah immediately admonished.

Knowing Huntress wouldn’t be dissuaded from her course of action, and having no interest in the women’s continued conversation, he signed off Oracle’s line and walked around to the back of the car, took a spare cape out of the trunk compartment and then put it on before climbing into the driver’s seat.

Damn!

Although the acoustic dressing had closed his wounds, moving carefully into the car was so prohibitively painful that he knew he’d start bleeding again as soon as he did anything more strenuous. But there was no other way.

Breathe.

Focus.

Shifting the car to manual control, he accelerated hard over the bridge, deliberately overshot the curve and smashed through the fencing, sailed down through the falling snow onto Miller Drive. The car skidded on impact and the fight to get it back under control put more strain on his injured side than the torque of the landing. As he guided the car down onto Gardenia Avenue, he felt the acoustic dressing grow wet with fresh blood, knew he was running out of time.

Harvey’s apartment block was halfway down Templeton and he drove off Gardenia all the way down to its front steps. He was hoping he’d be early, hoping he could get to Harvey before the Joker’s goons. He should have known better. As he climbed out of the car holding his side, he looked up at the window of Harvey’s front room, could see the light of an upturned lamp casting the shadows of three or four fighting men on the ceiling.

Without hesitation, he shot a grapple line up onto the roof of the building, let it carry him up the five floors to Harvey’s apartment then swung through the window into the melee.

‘Two-Doors’ Renton and Mickey ‘Big’ Smalls.

He’d landed almost square on them, caught Smalls across the shoulders and back of the head, knocked him out cold against the drinks cabinet, but Renton was another story. Second only to Rhino Daley in sheer size and brute strength, Renton got his nickname by charging through two security doors at the First National Bank. Stopping Renton would take a lot more time and energy than he currently had at his disposal, so he opted to use as little of both as possible.

Riding on Renton’s back as the huge thug clambered to his feet, he avoided Renton’s attempts to throw him and secured his forearm around Renton’s neck for a stranglehold. While Renton cut his hands bloody on the gauntlet blades trying to free himself, he reached down to his belt with his other hand, pulled a capsule of 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate knockout gas out of its compartment and broke it under Renton’s nose.

He knew he only had seconds before the incapacitating agent knocked Renton out cold, knew he should jump clear before the behemoth fell, but he couldn’t risk being caught by one of Renton’s massive fists, had to hold his position as long as possible.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four seconds later, Renton was losing consciousness, was falling over one of the armchairs in the middle of the room. As soon Renton’s back was parallel to the floor, he leapt from Renton’s shoulders to roll across the carpet towards the front door, felt a sudden wrench of sharp pain as the remaining clotting tore away from his wounds. Then he was crouching on the floor looking up into the barrel of a Browning Buck Mark semi-automatic pistol being held to his head by Harvey Dent.

Or was it Two-Face?

While the light from the upturned lamp let him see the .22 pistol quite plainly, it only lit the right half of Harvey’s face, leaving Harvey’s left side in eerie darkness.

He didn’t speak, couldn’t speak, just noted the figure of Langley Langston lying unconscious by the door and concentrated on the sound of Harvey’s ragged breathing over the hammering of his own heart.

“Who sent them?” Harvey demanded in a voice rough enough for Two-Face.

“Joker,” he answered low, studying the way Harvey’s gaze narrowed at the news. “Why the gun, Harvey? Why a twenty-two?”

“Just exercising my Second Amendment rights and I guess old habits die hard,” Harvey returned menacingly, but it was Harvey.

Having heard enough, he catapulted to his feet, grabbing the pistol out of Harvey’s grasp with one hand while shoving Harvey back against the door with the other.

As Harvey lost his breath and whooped for air, he tucked the pistol into the back of his belt then snarled in Harvey’s face, “Some habits are made to be broken. Where’s the other one?”

“Other what?”

“Twenty-two.”

“There isn’t one, so get the fuck off me!” Harvey wheezed and he let Harvey shove him back a step. “Now give me back my property.”

Taking three sets of plastic handcuffs out of their belt compartment, he slapped them into Harvey’s outstretched hand. “Restrain these men then call the police.”

“I’ll do whatever I see fit!” Harvey snapped, throwing the handcuffs to the floor and putting his hand out again. “Gun.”

Retrieving the pistol from the back of his belt, he stripped it in front of Harvey, letting all the pieces fall to the floor except the firing pin.

“You smug son of a bitch!” Harvey snarled as he turned his back on Harvey and walked away tucking the firing pin into his front belt compartment. “I’ll see you charged for this. I’ll see you rotting in a fucking cell!”

Ignoring Harvey’s continued threats, he stepped out the window and caught the grapple line, let his weight lower him down to the ground. He then gathered the line up and tucked it back into its belt compartment while walking back to the car.

Easing down into the driver’s seat made him feel as if someone was shoving a nail-riddled baseball bat into his side and he didn’t need to look to know the acoustic dressing was soaked through. He was reaching down under the passenger seat for the medical kit when Oracle hailed him.

“Blackbird, what’s your status?”

“Dent should be calling for a wagon any second,” he returned, sitting up with the medical kit in hand before replying suspiciously, “You’ve lost contact with Huntress, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t heard from her since she arrived at Nigma’s. She could be otherwise engaged, but...”

“I’ll be there in eighty seconds,” he answered her unasked question while quickly retrieving the largest dressing with the thickest absorbent pad and fitting it on top of the soaked acoustic dressing. “What were her injuries?” he continued as he wrapped the bandage around his waist as tightly as possible for maximum compression. “Would she have been badly outmatched by three thugs?”

“It’s hard to say on both counts,” Oracle sighed. “You know how people in this line of work hate to admit to any weakness.”

If there was a measure of accusation in her tone, he didn’t acknowledge it, just tied the bandage off securely, tossed the medical kit onto the passenger seat and started the car.

“On my way,” he concluded the call then drove off down Templeton onto Park Street before turning north onto Robinson Drive.

As he drove up towards Coventry along the edge of the Upper East Side, the compression from the new dressing started slowing the bleeding, easing the pain, and he couldn’t help but notice how peaceful, even magical, Robinson Park looked with its sparkling blanket of snow. Then, unbidden, memories of walking through the park with his parents on the way back from the Christmas fair flooded his mind and he could almost feel their strong hands holding his, could almost feel the warmth of their love keeping the-- The car swerved violently towards the side of the road and he had to wrestle it away from the parked cars, force it back into the centre of the lane and steady it on the snow.

Idiot.

Reaching over to the medical kit, he pulled out a capsule of ampakine-based stimulant and loaded it into the injector gun, shot himself in the thigh. The sharp jab of the stimulant being pressured through his skin into the muscle made an almost welcome change from the constant pain in his side. With his mind then focussed again on the task at hand, he tossed the injector gun back into the medical kit then cut across Monolith Square onto Fairley House Avenue.

Nigma’s townhouse was almost in the dead centre of Coventry, on the left side of Convent Street just down from the old nunnery mansion. As long as Nigma kept his criminal tendencies at bay, he didn’t particularly care where Nigma lived, but he didn’t understand why the good citizens of Coventry seemed quite happy to have Nigma in their neighbourhood. The idea that they thought Nigma’s presence in the area would somehow keep the more dangerous villains away amused him. Eddie didn’t scare anyone.

Huntress’ car was still there when he arrived and the door of the townhouse was standing open, but the tracks in the snow told him no one had left by the front door.

As he approached the open doorway, he heard the thuds and thumps of bodies and furniture hitting walls in the far corner of the house and sprinted down the hall to the library.

Kicking open the library door, he saw Huntress snag the carriage clock Nigma had won in a wager from Clock King off the bookshelf behind her and smack her assailant across the head with it. However, even as the goon collapsed, Helena started to fall too.

“I’ve got you,” he said, catching her and sitting her down in the only standing armchair in the room. “Where’s Nigma?”

“He ran off. Out the back.” She spared a hand from holding her head to wave in the direction of the back door. “Shiv Jackson and that bastard Marley are after him. You’d better move. I’ve got this meathead,” she growled, pulling handcuffs out of her belt.

Taking her at her word, he left her with the unconscious goon, headed out through the back of the house to give chase.

He knew he wouldn’t get very far in the snow bleeding the way he was, but he also knew Eddie wasn’t dumb enough to try to outrun two professional knifemen. No, Eddie would have tried to outsmart them, would have ran straight for the trees on the mansion property to literally tree himself until the police came. But, in his panic, Eddie hadn’t accounted for the effects of the Joker’s chaos. He knew the hired killers would get Eddie long before the police arrived if he didn’t get them first.

It was barely three hundred yards to the trees but every stride wrenched at his wounds while the freezing air tried to paralyse his lungs.

Damn.

Why weren’t the trees getting any closer?

Idiot.

Why hadn’t he taken a shot of painkiller when he had the chance?

Hubris.

Why hadn’t he asked Clark to-- No, he couldn’t have asked Clark because Clark was hurt. How could he have forgotten that Clark was hurt?

Trees.

He was in the trees.

Snapping himself out of the fugue that had taken him, he stepped back behind a large elm tree just as Jackson and Marley walked past.

“Fucking little big mouthed fucker’s here somewhere,” Jackson snarled. “I’m gonna cut off his tongue and make him swallow it.”

“Yeah, but let’s do him quick,” Marley replied. “Then we can go back to the house and have a little fun with that black-haired bitch. It’s been years since I cut a woman.”

“You sliced up that whore in Detroit.”

“Whores aren’t women.”

As they walked off in merciful silence, he watched them split up then followed Jackson through the trees while listening out for Marley.

After watching Jackson lumbering along in a slower manner than usual, which he supposed qualified as stalking in Jackson’s book, he picked the willow he knew Jackson was going to pause at next, then silently moved around Jackson and got there first. Then, as Jackson paused to listen, he slipped a tranquilliser dart out of its belt compartment and stabbed it into the back of Jackson’s neck as quickly as he could.

He may have been ridiculously weak and slow by his own standards, but Jackson didn’t know what hit him, barely had time to squeal before collapsing facedown in the snow.

“Shiv?” Marley called out quietly then louder, “Shiv? Hey, shit for brains, answer me!” Marley tried again while tramping through the snow towards him. “You better not be playing one of your dumb games, you cocksucking moron.”

As Marley continued to walk more cautiously forwards, he circled around behind Marley and took off his cape, hung it up on a low branch of the willow that stood directly opposite the one Jackson lay under. He then moved on again, took up a position behind another elm that gave him a clear view of Jackson and both willows.

“Shiv?” Marley was whispering now as he approached Jackson’s unconscious form. “Hey, you okay?”

He watched Marley shake Jackson and then turn him over tentatively. However, Marley didn’t find the dart under Jackson’s collar until after sitting him up against the tree.

“Batman,” Marley whispered then threw the dart down in the snow and snarled, “Fucking freak. I’m not scared of you. You hear me, you fucking psycho!” Marley yelled, standing up and glaring at the darkness as he backed away from Jackson. “Drugging Shiv was real cute. Can’t you fight like a man? You fucking psycho coward bat-fucking fucker! Are you a little girl? A scared little girl hiding in the dark? Why don’t you come out and fight me so I can cut your little-- AAAHHH!” Marley cried out as he backed into the cape, but then Marley was turning on the cape, stabbing at it in hysterical frenzy until the realisation dawned that it was only a cape. “You sick fuck!” Marley screamed at the darkness. “You sick motherfucking psycho freak! Fight me! Do you hear me? COME OUT AND FIGHT ME!”

Deciding he’d pushed Marley far enough, he pulled a blunt edged batarang from its belt compartment and then stepped out from behind the tree.

Predictably, Marley charged him like a berserker, but he held his ground, waited until Marley was so close he knew he’d never miss the shot then let the batarang fly.

It didn’t quite hit Marley right between the eyes but it was close enough. Marley dropped to the ground like a stone then proceeded to roll around in the snow screaming and holding his face. It was then a simple matter to walk up to Marley and punch him out cold, breaking his jaw in the process.

Looking down at Marley bleeding in the snow, he hadn’t quite decided if he wanted to prop the knifeman up against the tree or let him choke on his own teeth a little longer, when Nigma came out from behind the elm to his right.

“Bravo, Batman! Bravo!” Nigma applauded while walking up to him. “Of course I could have done it myself in a much more elegant manner had I had my--”

“Go home and pack, Eddie,” he growled as Nigma stopped in front of him. “Joker wants you dead.”

“Of course he does. He’s always been jealous of me. He even stole the--”

“Nefertiti head you were thinking about coming out of retirement for. I know.”

“You solved that one?”

“‘Get this through your head, this thing is as useful as a boat with wheels’? It was obvious. Don’t make me tell you to go home again.”

“Of course it was obvious. I wanted you to keep it in the museum, not let the Joker steal it,” Nigma returned while sidling furtively away. “But I see your purple harpy is on her way so I shall depart for screech free climes. Good night.” Nigma gave an ostentatious wave and then walked away pretending he wasn’t keeping a wary eye on Helena as he passed her.

Helena didn’t say a word to Nigma, didn’t speak to him either until she was grabbing Marley by his coat and dragging him over to the nearest tree.

“Since I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting,” she groaned while propping Marley up against the tree, “do I get to accidentally shoot a crossbow bolt into his groin?”

“No.”

“He deserves worse.”

“I know.”

Reluctantly leaving Marley’s groin perforation free, Helena walked up and offered him her arm. “Come on, lean on me.”

He scowled down at her. “You’re injured.”

“No, I’m healing and you’re at the ‘dare not move in case I fall on my face stage’ so give it up,” she returned, slipping a supportive arm around him whether he liked it or not. “Oracle’s got the cops on the way and she’s arranged for the Watchtower to beam us up once we’re clear of these trees so let’s go.”

Not seeing any other alternative, he shifted closer against her, let her take some of the weight off his injured side as they started to walk towards the clearing.

“There. This isn’t so bad now, is it?” she asked like a teacher dealing with a particularly difficult child.

“Teleporter,” he replied.

“Excuse me?” she returned.

“It’s called a teleporter. You teleport with a teleporter.”

“There’s a difference between a beaming system and a teleporter?”

“Beaming systems are fictional.”

“I see.”

Not appreciating her tone, he was about to tell her exactly why beaming systems didn’t work, when the snow on the ground suddenly rushed towards him and she disappeared, lost in the swirling darkness as the night sky swallowed them.

* * * *

Even before he opened his eyes, even before he could remember what had happened, he knew he was in isolation room E of the Watchtower’s infirmary recovering from an injury that had required time under a tissue regenerator as well as few litres of Universal Transfusion Fluid.

He hated alien medical technology.

While he wouldn’t deny that the tissue regenerators had their uses, he didn’t want to rely on them, didn’t want to come to depend on them the way some of the other League members did. He had trained his body all his adult life to first avoid injury and then, failing that, to recover from injury as quickly as possible. He wasn’t about to change that because some aliens had given them the surgical equivalent of a magic wand. As for Universal Transfusion Fluid, he didn’t like it, didn’t trust it and was quite sure he was allergic to it. J’onn had assured him that it was impossible to be allergic to UTF, that the properties that allowed it to flawlessly transform into a perfect match for any needed body fluid made it truly and absolutely universal.

He didn’t believe it.

On every single one of the eleven occasions he’d been given UTF, he’d suffered from itching. On nine of the eleven occasions, he’d broken out in hives and developed nasal congestion. On eight of the eleven occasions, he’d had dizziness and palpitations. On five of the eleven occasions, he’d suffered from nausea. On three of the eleven occasions, he’d felt so ridiculously exhausted that he could barely stay awake for more than an hour at a time -- despite the palpitations, nasal congestion and itchiness. Reassurances that all these symptoms were either psychosomatic or caused by the circumstances of his original injury did not convince him. Even now, the UTF in his system was making his skin crawl, making his muscles twitch, making the constant thrum from the generators on the floor below drive him to-- Clark!

Even before he had remembered everything, he remembered holding Clark in the warehouse, remembered the blood and the kryptonite shards, was kicking off the sheets to--

Clark was there.

Clark sleeping in the next bed, so close and real that looking at him felt surreal.

Abandoning the warmth of his bed for the comparative coolness of the room, he crossed the few feet to Clark’s side, stood naked and shivering as he read the monitor panel above Clark’s bed.

Good.

It all looked good.

The chlorophyll binding agent the Joker had created was breaking down, enabling Clark’s immune system to identify and attack the kryptonite molecules while a steady intravenous feed of high nutrient UTF made sure Clark’s body had the strength to withstand the poisoning. It was going to be a few days before Clark could endure an intense session of sunlight, so it would be four to five days before Clark would be back to full strength, but Clark would recover in less than a week.

Less than a week.

Remembering Clark’s injuries in the warehouse, remembering the blood and the pain, he could barely believe that Clark would be fine in just a few days. Lying on the infirmary bed, Clark looked too hurt, too pale, too weak, too damaged to fully recover in so short a time. Part of him didn’t believe it was really Clark lying so still, couldn’t believe that Clark could be so small, so silent, so cowed.

Fighting the desire to wake Clark up, to have Clark talk to him, touch him, reassure him of something he already knew, he turned his attention to the pack of UTF on Clark’s upper arm.

He couldn’t see the thin tubing the pack used to deliver the fluid into Clark’s body from where he stood, but he knew it was piercing Clark’s skin, piercing Clark’s vein, and he wasn’t sure if he could forgive that. While the pack was helping to save Clark’s life, its very presence mocked everything Clark should be, and that made him irrationally angry, made him want to rip the pack from Clark’s arm and throw it into the sun.

But then there was the other side.

It wasn’t often that they received UTF at the same time, this occasion would only be their third, but whenever they did, he was left with the odd knowledge that for once, even for a short time, they had some of the same blood in their veins.

“Come to bed,” Clark suddenly whispered and, even as he took a warm hold of the hand Clark reached out to him, even as he leaned down and settled his other forearm at the side of Clark’s head so he could stay very close as they talked, he wondered how long Clark had been watching him.

“We’re in the infirmary,” he returned with a kiss. “There are no cameras in this room but the bed isn’t big enough.”

“Oh.” Clark frowned. “I knew that.”

“How do you feel?”

“I’m a little groggy.”

“A little?”

“Okay, I’m a lot groggy and kissing me is the only cure.”

Smiling, he took Clark’s mouth in another soft kiss. “Better?”

“Mm, I think I’m getting there, but I feel more doses are required. I might even need--” Clark broke off and leaned away to get a better look at him. “You’re naked.”

“And people say I’m the world’s greatest detective.”

“It’s not funny, Bruce. What happened?”

“I’m fine.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Lifting up Clark’s hand, he kissed the middle knuckles. “I’ll tell you later.”

“The Joker hurt you and escaped, didn’t he?”

“I’ll find him,” he promised with a soothing kiss but Clark wasn’t in a mood to be soothed.

“It’s not good enough,” Clark growled. “What we do is never good enough when their cells can’t hold them.”

“I know.”

“That’s it!” Clark continued with a stubborn scowl. “I’m not putting up with it anymore. I had my reservations about Michael and Ted’s penitentiary plan but I’m going to put it back on the table and have the League vote again. I know it will still take years to coordinate the project internationally let alone build the actual thing, but there has to be a light at the end of this tunnel for all our sakes.”

He was half tempted to mention the train, but then just kissed Clark and said, “Who needs lights when we have a shiny Kryptonian?”

“If I ever was shiny, I certainly don’t feel shiny right now,” Clark sighed then frowned. “Actually, I feel green.”

“Green?”

“Green.”

“You’re not talking about the kryptonite poisoning, are you?”

“No. I feel like--” Clark broke off to move his tongue around his mouth in consternation. “Why do my teeth taste like chlorophyll?”

“They don’t. You’re tasting the chlorophyll based binding agent the Joker used on the kryptonite.”

“Okay. That explains why even the thought of sunlight is turning my stomach and it’s good to know neither of us are plant men in disguise.”

“Plant men in disguise. Right.” He surreptitiously checked Clark’s medication levels. “Is there any particular reason why I’d be a plant man in disguise?”

“It was a joke, Bruce.” Clark leaned up to take his mouth in a warm kiss. “You taste too good to be a plant man.”

“I see.” He let Clark kiss him again before asking, “Exactly how many plant men have you kissed?”

“None,” Clark answered with another kiss.

“So you have no data to back up your hypothesis.”

“Nope.” Clark kissed him again. “But the law of probability is firmly on my side.”

“Probability on your side or not, you should be asleep,” he replied, reaching down behind the bed to press the button that increased Clark’s pain medication. “I’m going to go home for a few hours but I’ll come back tonight,” he continued with a kiss that turned into a series of kisses when Clark pulled him close and didn’t let go.

Although Clark was weak and growing increasingly sleepy from the medication, he couldn’t find the strength to pull away, let Clark lengthen and deepen the soft kisses until Clark finally broke them to whisper against his lips.

“I’d do it all again. I knew it was a trap but I’d do it all again because they were just little girls, Bruce. I couldn’t--”

“I know.” He kissed Clark again. “Go to sleep.”

Clark’s lips moved as if he was going to respond, but then Clark’s eyes fluttered closed and that was that.

He knew some people liked to watch others sleep, but he had never saw the attraction. There was absolutely nothing he could see about a person when they were asleep that he couldn’t see when they were awake. In fact, the opposite was true.

Looking at Clark asleep now, anyone could see he was beautiful, see he was hurt, see he was strong, see he was kind, but they couldn’t see the perfect blue of his eyes, couldn’t see his smile, couldn’t see his intelligence, his courage, his compassion, integrity, honesty, loyalty, humour, humility, generosity, passion, unending love and unlimited optimism. They were looking at a promise that would only be fulfilled when Clark awoke, and he wasn’t interested in promises until they were kept.

Studying Clark’s vital signs carefully, he waited until Clark’s body had settled into the slow rhythm of deep sleep before slipping his hand out of Clark’s and walking silently over to the room’s computer terminal.

The room’s small system was part of the medical network and so it took him a moment to hack into the central mainframe. However, once he’d accessed the central system, it was a simple matter to adjust the environmental control programs. He had shut down half the heating on twenty-two levels before complaints started being logged and his access was blocked.

He could have hacked in again, could have driven his point home, but there was no need. Letting the terminal default back to its usual settings, he sat down on the foot of his bed and waited for his clothes to arrive.

The numbness in his side was starting to wear off and the deep bruising left by the tissue regenerator was beginning to throb, when he heard someone enter the room’s security code into the keypad. Two seconds later, the door slid open and Zatanna walked in with his things.

“You’re in your birthday suit so we all get the shivers. Nice,” she said, walking up close to put his boots on the floor and the rest of his clothes on the mattress beside him. “You could have just got on the telepathic grapevine and asked J’onn to bring them.”

“J’onn didn’t take them and I wanted to ask you something.”

“Well, put your pants on while I cast a little kryptonite go home spell over here,” she returned, stepping over to Clark’s bed and putting her hands over him before actually chanting ‘kryptonite go home’ backwards.

He couldn’t see anything happening but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end so, presuming Zatanna was making progress, he stood up off the bed to put on his underwear then pull on the bottom half of his suit. He had his left boot on and was just pulling on his right when Zatanna stopped chanting and turned back to face him.

“So what did you want to ask?”

Stamping on his boot, he stepped over to the monitor panel above Clark’s bed, saw there was a marked decrease in kryptonite toxins in Clark’s blood. Impressed, he faced Zatanna. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“It’s kind of like picking up a grain of sand with a hydraulic claw but I can usually remove a few milligrams at a time. Now come on,” she continued, lifting her chin challengingly, “what do you want?”

“Your help to cast a location spell.”

Folding her arms across her chest, Zatanna leaned back against Clark’s bed. “You want me to help you find that giggling psychopath?”

“I’ve been out for four and a half hours. Oracle and her teams have been looking for him for longer than that. I need--”

“You need your head examined!” Zatanna snapped back. “Last time you dabbled in magic, without telling me I might add, a demon came to your house and tried to eat you. That’s just what my father warned you about, Bruce. And now that all the seven realms have you marked out as a demon killer, you want me to help you slap a sign on your back saying ‘Devour Me Now, Big Boy’.”

“Couldn’t you--”

“No I couldn’t!” Zatanna snarled, pushing away from the bed to step up very close to him. “You don’t seem to realise what’s going on here, Bruce, so let me make it perfectly clear. Location spells can only be cast by practitioners who have a strong connection to the person they wish to locate. If the practitioner does not have a strong connection to the person they wish to locate, they need to act as a proxy for someone who has that strong connection by casting the spell through them. That means that whether I help you to cast the spell or I cast the spell through you, your soul is going to be flavouring that magic like demon killer gravy and every single evil thing in existence looking for an easy lunch is going to be chomping on you before we find one green hair. Now, is that clear or do I have to start drawing pictures?”

He stepped around her without a word, picked up the top half of his suit and pulled it on over his head.

“I’m not exaggerating this,” Zatanna went on low as he picked up his belt and put it on. “There’s no way I could.”

He didn’t respond, just picked his gloves up and pulled them on, was reaching for his cowl when Zatanna touched his back and he had to leave the cowl where it lay, had to turn around and face her.

“You have no idea how lucky you were,” she said, laying a hand on the centre of his chest, just above his heart. “If that demon hadn’t underestimated Alan, if it had just the slightest inkling of what was really happening, it would have killed you all as easily as the Beast killed my father.”

He knew what she said was true without looking into her eyes, but he couldn’t not look into them, couldn’t not see the pain and sadness there, couldn’t not cup her face in his hands and kiss her forehead.

“I’m sorry.”

“Promise me you’ll stay clear of magic.”

“I promise.”

“And tell me if magic doesn’t stay clear of you.”

“I will.”

“Okay.” She smiled and stepped back, so he turned away to pick up his cowl. “But that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on Fate’s poker nights,” she went on as he slipped the cowl over his face. “We magic folks like taking you lesser mortals’ money.”

“That must be why I’ve never lost a penny to either of you,” he returned, putting on the fresh cape she had brought from his quarters then turning to face her again. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me by not finding a way to wriggle out of that promise.”

“I wouldn’t have made it if I didn’t intend to keep it.”

“I know,” she sighed, stepping up close and bringing her hands up to touch either side of his mouth. “It’s never your intentions I have a problem with,” she continued, looking into his eyes, looking into his soul. Then she stepped away, turned away, was walking out the room calling over her shoulder, “Fate’s west parlour, Wednesday, the usual time and bring your own deck.”

The door hadn’t quite closed behind Zatanna when Huntress slipped into the room and gave him an assessing glance.

“You look better.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.” She took a few steps towards Clark’s bed and quickly read his monitor panel. “He’s looking a lot better than I thought he would.”

“He’ll do even better after we leave,” he growled, striding towards her so she turned and headed for the door.

“I’m guessing you’ve worked out we haven’t found the Joker yet due to the lack of people queuing up to tell you we found him,” Huntress told him as she walked out the door ahead of him, “but Barda and Dinah were successful with no casualties so Joker didn’t get it all his own way.”

Stepping out of the isolation room behind Huntress, he looked back to see the door close on Clark before walking down the corridor towards the infirmary’s teleport room. “You should rest,” he told Huntress as she fell into step beside him. “Go home.”

“Is that where you’re going?”

“Yes.”

“To rest?”

He didn’t answer, just walked into the teleport room and went over to the control panel, started typing in the coordinates of Huntress’ apartment building.

“Stand on the pad and I’ll teleport you to the roof of your building.”

“You can do that?” Huntress asked in surprise while stepping up onto the pad. “I thought I was looking forward to a long walk home from the Civic Building.”

“Hold your breath.”

“Right,” she replied then took a deep breath, and he initiated the sequence, watched her dematerialise then waited a second for the readings to tell him she had rematerialised safely before punching in his own coordinates.

He knew the coordinates of the house so well that he could have teleported himself into any room on any floor, but he chose the coordinates in the cave that he had inputted into the teleporter as one of the original seven. There was no particular reason why the cave’s original teleport point was beside the car’s parking space at the edge of the transport hanger, but the location pleased him. For whatever reason, he liked to teleport in via the Watchtower from any point on Earth and find the car waiting for him. However, even though Alfred had retrieved the car from Nigma’s apartment and had thoroughly cleaned it in his absence, nothing could have pleased him as he teleported in this time.

Although the deep bruising in his side throbbed almost as painfully as his original knife wounds as he walked across the floor to the computer bay, his real affliction was amateurish incompetence. He had taken too long to figure out the Joker’s scheme and then, not content with putting tens more people in danger than necessary, he’d let the Joker anger him, injure him and then escape. Had he learnt nothing?

As he reached the top of the computer bay steps, his bout of self-disgust was interrupted by a bout of dizziness that made him stagger back against the railing. A split second later, his heart began pounding in his ears and every inch of his body suddenly felt intensely itchy.

Perfect.

If he never saw another pack of UTF again it would be too soon.

Leaning against the railing, he stripped off his clothes where he stood then left them piled on the floor, crossed over to the computer and curled up in the chair naked. Removing all his clothes had helped with the itchiness a little but he couldn’t stop himself scratching as he opened an audio line to Oracle.

“No visual, B?” she asked as soon as she answered.

“I’m naked,” he returned flatly. “Search status?”

“Ohhkay. Still nothing. Alan’s giving the river one last sweep as we speak but it looks like he’s long gone,” Barbara sighed. “Sorry.”

“Send me your search logs and Alan’s last report when you get it,” he replied, rubbing his eyes because the damned UTF in his system even made his optic nerves itch. “I’ll work through everything and find whatever you missed.”

“Right,” Barbara growled and then the computer beeped as it received an incoming file. “That’s everything I have on the search. Feel free to delete any non-relevant, human conversation.”

He knew Barbara was angry with him but he didn’t have the time or patience to placate her. “Thank you,” he ended the conversation then cut the line just as Alfred walked up the steps into the computer bay.

“Good morning, Master Bruce,” Alfred greeted him while putting his breakfast tray down on the side area. “May I ask what potpourri of ills your UTF treatment has yielded on this occasion?”

“I’m fine,” he grumped back while opening the files Oracle had sent.

“Don’t scratch your hives, sir!”

Hives? He looked down at his left forearm and saw there was a spattering of hives stretching from his wrist to his collarbone. Damn aliens.

“Bring me the ointment, please, Alfred.”

“I would advise a bath.”

“I don’t have time for a bath,” he dismissed as he began scanning through Barbara’s data.

“On the contrary, Master Bruce,” Alfred replied archly, “upon hearing of your mishap, I took the liberty of telephoning Mr Fox and passing on your regrets regarding today’s board meeting.”

“Then you can just call him back and tell him you were mistaken and that I will be attending.”

“I don’t believe that would be wise, sir.”

“I told Lucius I’d be at that meeting.”

“And I informed him you would not be.”

Tearing his gaze away from the computer screen, he scowled up at Alfred, who met his irritated glare with implacable resolve.

“My apologies, sir, but I would be remiss in my duties if I allowed you to attend a board meeting while itching in a manner that encouraged persons to believe you had contracted a most unfortunate disease.”

Unable to stop scratching, he had to admit that Alfred had a point.

“Fine.” He turned back to the computer screen. “But I’ll still be going in. Tell Lucius I’ll be in my office if he needs anything.”

“Very well. I shall telephone Mr Fox then attend to your symptoms upon my return.”

He nodded and Alfred stepped away to pick his clothes up from the floor. However, instead of leaving with the laundry in his arms, Alfred stepped up beside the chair and asked softly, “I trust Mr Kent is recovering readily from his injuries?”

The question didn’t surprise him but his eyes started itching again, so he sat back in his chair to rub them while answering, “Even with the chlorophyll based binding agent complicating his convalescence, Clark should fully recover within six days.”

“That is a relief, sir. I do hope Mr Kent will spend some time recuperating here with us. I also hope that you believe the Joker’s use of a chlorophyll based agent was merely a particularly nasty coincidence rather than a deliberate ploy.”

“I believe that if the Joker was fully aware of the mechanics of Clark’s powers, he would have been having ‘fun’ with that information long before now,” he replied tiredly, suddenly feeling utterly exhausted. “The truth is that Clark was just collateral damage. They all were.”

“All, Master Bruce?”

“The little girls, the police officers, the men and women at the construction site, they were the Joker’s idea of gift wrap. He didn’t care if they lived or died. He only targeted them to keep the police busy while he murdered Two-Face, Riddler, Ubu, Electrocutioner, Lock-Up, Orca, Ventriloquist and Echo as a gift to me.”

“Truelove,” Alfred put together. “How very droll.”

“Droll or not, he used me to hurt people and I let him escape.”

“I see,” Alfred returned gently. “Shall I start work on widening the cave entrance tonight or will tomorrow morning be soon enough?”

Too tired and itchy to think, he just scowled up at Alfred. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t believe there is enough room for both yourself and your inflated ego to pass through the entrance at the same time, Master Bruce. So, unless you are willing to rethink your importance, I will need to get the hydraulic rock drill out of storage and--”

“It’s fact, Alfred, not ego.”

“On the contrary, sir, the only fact I acknowledge is the Joker’s insanity. To postulate that your presence created such psychotic depravity would be tantamount to a raindrop claiming it created a tsunami. If not you, the Joker’s pathology would have caused him to latch onto someone else. You know this as well as I. You are also aware of the likelihood of that other person surviving such an obsession and how others would have suffered through the course of the ‘romance’ without your aid. While you are a most remarkable man in many ways, Master Bruce, even you are not singular enough to create such murderous lunacy or, indeed, stop a frenzied madman from jumping off a bridge.”

He knew Alfred was stating the plain facts, but that didn’t change the way he felt.

While the extreme pathology of the Joker was a certainty regardless of circumstance, he lived in the real world and in the real world the Joker was hurting innocent people in his name, torturing Clark as part of some sick game to get his attention, and he couldn’t help but feel responsible. However, as threadbare as his soul felt with the Joker’s evil, with Arkham’s incompetence, with the perpetual darkness that choked Gotham like a miasma of terror and violence, he knew the alternative was even darker.

He had never set out to become a hero, not Gotham’s, not anyone’s, but he had vowed never to become that which he fought. It was easy, all too easy, to look into the abyss and allow the abyss to look into you, so, before he had even put on the suit, he had determined that any loss of life through his action or inaction was too high a price to pay, that allowing the death of anyone would render any good he did naught.

And that anyone included the Joker.

Like looking into the abyss too long, it would have been easy to let the train have Joker, easy to stand by and do nothing. But he knew if he let the abyss look into him, the Joker’s murder would only be the beginning, that there would be more terror, more violence, more darkness, more murders...until that one.

That one.

Sooner or later, there would be a mistake. There always was. Sooner or later, an innocent person would die at his hands and he would have become something far worse than the Joker, far worse than any of the evil he had set out to fight.

And that was too high a price for Gotham to pay.

He knew that, believed it with all his heart, but that didn’t ease his mind when he knew Joker was on the loose again because of his incompetence.

“Fine, you’re both right,” he growled, closing his eyes against a sickening bout of dizziness and leaning back into the depths of the chair. “Barbara’s right because there is no way I can make better sense of this data than her right now and you’re right because I know I’m not responsible for the Joker’s insanity.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Alfred replied.

“But I am responsible for my own actions and I should have made sure the Joker was unarmed before exposing myself to possible injury.”

“Yes,” Alfred agreed dryly, “I have often thought how wonderful it would be if you were an automaton who didn’t become impassioned when saving the life of another, whether that other is a loved one or a knife-wielding lunatic.”

“The fact that the Joker did not attack me with the knife previously should not have made me sloppy enough to presume he didn’t have one, Alfred.”

“Would that we were all perfect.”

“There’s no excuse.”

“As you say, Master Bruce, but, since it will take the Joker a few days if not a few weeks to come up with his next fiendish plan, your course of action is clear.”

“Fine. Run the bath,” he relented, minimising Barbara’s data then bringing up a 3D map of Gotham.

“Very good, sir,” Alfred all but purred with satisfaction while watching him settle more comfortably into the chair.

He had just begun letting his eyes wander over the map while his sluggish mind pondered the problem at its own pace, when Alfred added, “However, before I go, and at the risk of inflating your ego, I would like to state that I am immensely proud of you because of your passion not in spite of it.”

He didn’t look round, waited until Alfred had turned away, waited until Alfred was just about to descend the computer bay steps before replying, “Passion makes mistakes.”

“Yes, but it also defines us. Now eat your breakfast while I call Mr Fox and prepare your bath.”

He listened to Alfred walk away and suddenly wanted to call the Watchtower just to make sure Clark-- No. He’d left the Watchtower mere minutes ago and Clark was going to be fine. There was no need to call. No need at all.

Growling at his own weaknesses, he reached over and picked up his breakfast tray from the side area, ate the light meal of scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast while the computer took him on a tour of Gotham.

He’d finished the egg and toast and had just discovered that the drink Alfred had prepared in the insulated jug was in fact hot chocolate, when Alfred returned with a cape draped over his arm to regard him disapprovingly.

“That is not the cape you left with, Master Bruce.”

“No it isn’t,” he agreed, pouring himself a mug of hot chocolate. “It was a two cape night.”

“Two?”

“That’s from the Watchtower.”

“I see.” Alfred watched him take a drink of hot chocolate before asking, “Dare I enquire if either of the two can be retrieved before they end up on a fraternity or sorority house wall?”

“One’s ruined beyond recognition but I should be able to get the car spare back from Gordon if you have an overwhelming need to sew up slashes made by a manic misogynist.”

“We each must do our parts,” Alfred replied wryly then picked up the insulated jug from the tray. “Come along now, Master Bruce, your bath awaits.”

He shouldn’t have let Alfred ply him with painkiller spiked hot chocolate, shouldn’t have let Alfred talk him into spending so long in the bath, but it did make him feel better. After Alfred’s care, he felt slightly less itchy and more sleepy than exhausted and, although still irritated by his own stupidity, felt more able to correct the situation by tracking down the Joker.

That feeling lasted until he got into his office at Wayne Enterprises, rolled out his Progressive Era map of Gotham on his desk, sat down to ponder it...and nothing happened.

Nothing.

The more he looked at the map, the more the lines of streets and buildings became abstract ideas that made no sense at all until, at some point, he fell asleep.

“Mr Wayne?”

Someone was gently shaking his shoulder, trying to-- Marci.

Realising that the woman trying to wake him was his secretary, that he was slumped over his office desk drooling on his shirtsleeve, he sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, tried to look vaguely alert.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Marci apologised, “but Mr Kent is in reception for you.”

Clark was... “What?”

“Mr Kent, sir. He’s downstairs in reception.”

That’s what he thought she had said but it still didn’t make any sense.

“He asserts he has an appointment with you but there’s nothing in the book,” Marci continued disapprovingly. “Shall I--”

“No, I must have forgotten about it,” he finally gathered enough sense to respond while standing up to pick his suit jacket up from the back of his chair and pull it on. “Sorry, Marci. Can you tell security to send him up?”

“Of course, Mr Wayne.” Marci turned and walked smartly out the room.

As soon as she had closed the door behind her, he picked up his desk phone and called the house.

“Good afternoon, Master Bruce,” Alfred answered from the kitchen phone. “I trust you--”

“Did Clark come by just now?”

“Mr Kent? No, sir,” Alfred returned in surprise. “I was under the impression that he would be under medical--”

“That’s fine, Alfred. Thank you.”

“Is something amiss?”

“No, but Clark’s just turned up in reception. Can you finish whatever you’re doing and come collect him?”

“Of course, sir. I will drive over immediately.”

Ending the call, he hung up and then walked over to the door, paced up and down in front of the couch until Marci knocked on the door and entered.

“Mr Kent, sir,” Marci announced, moving to the side so Clark could walk into the room.

To anyone who didn’t know Clark was Superman, or just didn’t know Clark that well at all, Clark’s condition didn’t look so bad, nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. However, he knew Clark’s body almost as well as he knew his own and could see that beneath the smiling veneer, Clark was ready to collapse.

“Thank you, Marci,” he said, walking around Clark to quickly manoeuvre her out the door. “It won’t be a long meeting but make sure I’m not disturbed.”

“Of course, Mr Wayne.”

She walked away and he locked the door behind her before grabbing hold of Clark and helping him over to the couch.

“Have you lost your mind?” he snapped while gently lowering Clark down into the couch’s comfortable depths. “You should still be getting treatment.”

“I could say the same about you,” Clark returned, pulling him down to sit on the couch beside him. “Besides I am getting treatment,” Clark continued, leaning against him in a way that made him think Clark wasn’t referring to the UTF pack that was almost visible through the sleeve of his suit jacket.

Wrapping his left arm around Clark so Clark could sit more comfortably against him, he said into Clark’s hair, “You should be in bed.”

“I want to be in bed,” Clark told him, moving to take his mouth in a soft kiss. “But I can’t be in bed until you’re in bed.”

“Last time I looked, we weren’t conjoined twins.”

“No, but simple arithmetic says you needing sleep plus me needing endorphins equals us in bed.”

Bringing his right hand up, he cupped the left side of Clark’s face. “How did you convince J’onn to teleport you here?”

“It was easy.” Clark leaned into his hand so he was thumbing Clark’s cheek as Clark kissed him again. “J’onn can count.”

“I don’t want to know what he added up.”

“You smell so good,” Clark murmured, kissing the palm of his hand. “Maybe being conjoined twins wouldn’t be so bad.”

Great.

Clark was so high he was in orbit.

“The endorphins kicked in as soon as you walked in the room, didn’t they?” he asked and Clark gave him another kiss.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Now I’m going to give you a present.”

“We’re not having sex.”

“That wasn’t what I meant, but now that you mention it...”

“What’s the present?”

“Well, I’ll be able to fly a little tonight so I’ve asked Kara to help us track down the Joker.”

Great.

Clark was drugged and delusional.

“Come on, it’ll be fine,” Clark insisted with a kiss. “Kara and I will stay high and do exactly what you tell us.”

“You being high is what worries me,” he returned dryly but Clark just kissed him again.

“When will Alfred get here?”

“In about twenty minutes but I still have work to do.”

“What work?” Clark scowled over at the desk. “Obsessing about the Joker isn’t work.”

He didn’t want to have this conversation, turned away to--

“Bruce, look at me,” Clark said, gently turning him back around for a soothing kiss. “I’m not saying this because of the endorphins. I’m saying this because what happened today is just something that happened. There was nothing either of us could have done differently but it isn’t over. After we go home and get some sleep, Kara will help us catch Joker then this time tomorrow we’ll be curled up in the cinema room watching ‘Dinoshark’ over a big bowl of Alfred’s popcorn.”

Okay, now his brain was itchy.

“Clark, you start by telling me you aren’t saying this because of the endorphins then finish by telling me you want to watch something called ‘Dinoshark’. In what way was that a good strategy?”

“It made you stop questioning my plan to capture the Joker, didn’t it?” Clark asked, but didn’t let him answer, captured him in a kiss that was so gently demanding, so warmly needful, that he couldn’t help but return it, deepen it, lengthen it, give Clark everything he wanted.

But it couldn’t last.

Before he was tempted to lose himself in the kiss, to surrender everything to Clark, he broke away and answered low, “No it didn’t stop me questioning your plan because it wasn’t even a plan.”

Blinking in slight disorientation, Clark frowned at him. “Why does getting injured always make you so bad tempered?”

“The fact that your plan actually relies on me formulating a plan has nothing to do with my temper, bad or otherwise.”

“So you’re saying you can’t get my plan to work?”

“Of course I can get it to work.”

“So the problem is your bad mood?”

“My problem is you being annoying.”

“I actually think my plan to let you do the plan is probably one of the best plans I’ve ever had.”

“Right.”

“I mean, why should I do everything myself when I have a pretty little Earthling to do it for me?”

“You really don’t like having all your limbs attached, do you?”

Grinning, Clark just kissed him again before resting his head on his shoulder and continuing sleepily, “As for ‘Dinoshark’, we can watch something else if you like but Arthur says it’s hilarious.”

Leaning more comfortably against Clark, he said into the soft waves of Clark’s hair, “Arthur’s sense of humour is Atlantean and he still thinks ‘Love Story’ is the greatest motion picture of all time.”

“Good point,” Clark murmured back drowsily and, just a few seconds later, he thought Clark had fallen sleep, had closed his eyes to nap for a few minutes himself, when Clark said very softly, “I knew you were close. In the warehouse, I couldn’t see or hear anything except the Joker but I knew you were there. It’s hard to describe but you felt like a light in the darkness that I couldn’t see, as if I had my eyes closed but still knew you were there, and nothing the Joker did could really hurt me because I knew he could never touch that light. Does that make sense?”

Did it? He didn’t know, couldn’t answer, just kissed the top of Clark’s head and said, “I’ll wake you when it’s time to go home.”

 

 

End


End file.
